


Two Roads Diverged

by quantumvelvet



Category: Baldur's Gate
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-20
Updated: 2014-12-20
Packaged: 2018-03-02 10:19:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,302
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2808866
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quantumvelvet/pseuds/quantumvelvet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Reflections on paths not taken, choices not made, and things that might have been.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Two Roads Diverged

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Thimblerig](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thimblerig/gifts).



> Strictly AU, piggybacking on the popular fanon that Yoshimo and Tamoko were related, and that her fate was his reason for signing on with Irenicus.

The forest stank of rot, the high, sour green smell of spoiled vegetation all but covering the sweeter, meaty reek beneath. Though she'd sworn just the night before that she'd never be able to banish the choking smoke of Saradush from her throat, Tamoko now found herself almost longing for it. That, at least, had been the honest stink of warfare, all smoke and ash and metal and magic, and not that of creeping secrets submerged somewhere in the bog.

 

It encroached on all sides, stagnant pools sucking at the crumbling edges of the causeway leading up to the fallen temple, as though the mire was desperate to reclaim even the mouldering bones of what had once passed for civilization, if only in the broadest of terms. The feeling of fallow ground and old curses itched at the edges of her thoughts, a feeling not unlike the stinging gnats that had been unnervingly absent for the past quarter of an hour.

 

She cast her senses about, aware but not quite listening to the small group's leader trade words with the creature that played gatekeeper to the temple. _Something_ was amiss here, more than merely the distant moans that rose and fell as the wind shifted, or the spectre of an old man long dead on the road, far away to the north. Every instinct, every nerve, warned her of threats far nearer to hand, if only she could see beneath the protective camouflage of the brooding, stinking swamp.

 

“Even now, you're too busy chasing secrets.”

 

The voice was like a lash, and all thought of looming danger shattered. Tamoko jerked upright, gaze snapping back to the head of the group. The old dead scholar was no longer alone, and much as she would like to be, she was unsurprised that she hadn't heard his companion's approach. Alone in the privacy of her thoughts, she could even admit that she likely wouldn't have, even if he had been flesh and blood, and not just a spectral image. Her jaw clenched, teeth grinding hard enough to hurt. “Turn your tricks elsewhere, remnant.  _You_ are not  _ he _ .”

 

Even mocking and stretched thin over vast and icy rage, the spectre's smile was familiar. How not, when she had seen it every day of her childhood, following her, teasing her, daring her to break discipline, test the rules, turn down this path or that, away from the destiny that stretched out before her. “Aren't I? You think this too cruel a fate, yes? And all your fault.”

 

“It is  _ not _ my fault!” She cursed herself even as the protest left her lips. She should know better than to bandy words with some false, ghostly thing – and yet. Doubt crept in around the edges; her companions had spared her the particulars of her brother's death, but what she had learned, what she had pieced together, had been far from kind.

 

“Isn't it?” The spectre's smile stretched, grew edges. She tasted bile at the back of her throat, bitter to match that expression. “You left. You chained your fate to the spawn of murder, and allowed yourself to be believed dead in the gutter. Our family demanded revenge, as you knew it would. Grandfather could allow no less for his favorite grandchild.”

 

“I didn't...” The words caught somewhere south of her chest. It was a lie; she had known what would happen, if word reached her family, far away across the sea. No matter that had she died, it would have been in combat. No matter that there would have been just cause. Her family would have mourned, would have blamed, and would have sought what they believed to be justice.

 

She'd simply been certain she'd hidden herself so well that they would never hear the news. Had been certain they counted her dead already, so long had she been gone.

“You didn't care. I followed. I found a man who knew who it was that had killed you. The price he exacted for the vengeance I never took binds me here.”

 

She sucked in a sharp breath. The analytical part of her, the part shaped by her tutors and sharpened under the rougher, more brutal tutelage of her one-time lover still cried warning. She hadn't known, not for certain, what had brought her brother across the sea to Amn, but she had feared. In some small, dark part of her soul, she had wept for the part she thought she must have played. “Any curse can be...”

 

“Wait.” The voice came from beside her; their leader had slipped up to her shoulder, silent as ever her brother could be. “Don't listen to him. It's a trap.”

 

Her brother's smile, already ugly, turned more so. There was something feral there, hungry.  _ Cursed to walk these dead grounds, hungering for rest he'll never have. _ “Ah, yes. The hero speaks. You can't absolve my sister, any more than you could absolve me.”

 

“I couldn't absolve him of his sins.” The agreement was quiet, steady, without even a tremor of sorrow, though Tamoko was sure it was present somewhere beneath the calm veneer. It had been there, at least, when she'd first heard the news. “But Ilmater did. I honoured your brother's last wish, and took his heart to the temple for intercession. Whatever he did, whatever crimes he committed – the god of mercy wouldn't have allowed this.”

 

The spectre's laugh felt like maggots burrowing beneath her skin. Abruptly, she was reminded of the sense of  _ wrongness _ that had permeated the bog, of the absence of the stinging flies, or any other sign of life aside from their small group.

 

Undead.

 

Powerful undead.

 

Such creatures might well feed on despair, and even those that did not would be canny enough to use it as a tool.

 

“No,” she agreed in her turn, and was ashamed to realize her own voice was not half as steady as that of her friend. Rage burned there, molten hot, and she gathered it to her as though it might chase away the chill of grief. Gathered it and bound it to her faith, pushing it outward in a cleansing wave that stirred the dead air and rippled the stinking water. “Ilmater would have gathered my brother amongst his faithful. This  _ thing _ befouls his image.”

 

The spectre shrieked, its rage a match to her own – but wounded, too, not unto death, but enough that its illusion shattered.

 

Illusions, plural. Abruptly, the road was far more crowded than it ought to have been, and again she felt the sting of shame, this time as she realized just how well-fooled she'd been. The wraiths must have sensed her suspicion, to divert her in so timely a fashion.

 

Little good did it do them in the end; between searing faith and burning spell, the creatures did not long outlast the breaking of their mask.

 

As the last of them fell, her leader stepped over the seared ground where the master of the pack of spectres had stood and fought, and laid one hand on her arm. “He –  _ it _ – lied. What happened wasn't your fault.”

 

She shook her head, and shook off the loose grip. “It lied, but that...that was a truth, I think. It's of no consequence. We have business ahead.”

 

Her friend hesitated, as though on the verge of protest, then nodded and turned once more toward the temple. Tamoko drew herself up straight, and claimed the next position in their formation. There would be more undead ahead, and she was best equipped both to detect and dispatch them.

 

She would see this through, and see her newest ally triumphant. That was what her brother would have wanted; that was how she could honor his memory, and his sacrifice.

 

No more chasing secrets. It was time to stand.


End file.
